Okay, here are my nominations for the year 2018!!
Best Casino: Very difficult one as I have played at a good few this year but I have to go with my first thought and that is
Videoslots.
My withdrawals are processed within 5 minutes, no matter what day or what time of the day. Within 5 minutes the funds are in my Skrill account.
Second of all their customer service has always been good to me and finally I still love the weekly prize money and the weekly race.
I have 100% trust in this casino and we all can debate about the structure they dish out rewards and stuff but nearly everything is wager free and I have made some nice withdrawals from the small free spins or funds I received.
Also for me a trustworthy casino and fast payouts are far more important than how much freebees they give.
For me a 5 star casino with a huge selection of slots and other games.
I can see them around for a long time as this casino rocks for me, simply a rock solid crowd in this jungle of casinos out there.
A honorable mention I would like to give to
Casumo and
CasinoEuro, 2 casinos I also play quite often.
Worst Casino: This year for me that would be
Vera&John unfortunately. I have had 2 bad experiences with their customer service and also their withdrawal times have significantly increased from a few hours to sometimes up to 2 days now, even when I WD to my Skrill. Still a decent casino with loads of games but I do not think I will play here much anymore.
It feels they have changed in the background, and not for the best.
Best Customer Service: Again
Videoslots for me, always get a rep. quickly to answer me and they have always been friendly to me, no matter what the query or issue was.
Worst Customer Service: Well as per my worst casino, that is gonna be
Vera&John too. One rep. closed the chat twice on me and when I tried to contact them again via chat they all of a sudden were closed. This was in the evening and I assume he was working on his own and just screwed me by closing the chat. Should still have been open for another 90 minutes as I checked the times.
Best Rep: I know
Dan (VS) is now working for Pragmatic but he did help me a lot in 2018 in the months he was still with Videoslots so I would like to nominate him.
Always fast in response and always sorted out my queries. Only the implementation of Greentube for Ireland had not been sorted when he left but that was sorted soon after by Team Videoslots.
A good second and worth a mention too is
Conor (Trada), always friendly and quick in his responses, nice and fair guy!!
I have no votes for a bad rep as I did not really come across one this year.
Best Provider: Already mentioned and I agree 100% - For me this is
Push Gaming because they have released some really interesting slots with some cool mechanics. Also they play sleek and are very colorful. I hope to see more from this crowd. A good second for me would be
Play 'n Go.
Worst Provider: Oh well I am sure this is no surprise -
BTG.
Purely designed by a bunch of greedy cowboys with no respect to the player at all.
Designing slots so impossibly high variance that is just takes the fun out of them.
Dead spin galore, takes sometimes 1000-1500 spins to trigger a feature, no action in the base game like extra features or mini games, simply boring and the biggest balance destroyers on the planet.
Also here a good second and worth a honorary mention - Pragmatic Games.
Great looking slots but where are the wins, to hit 50x on their slots is a feat of strength and I can say I have never ever made profit from a session on Pragmatic.
Sorry Dan, nothing personal but Pragmatic slots are not for me.
Best Casino Group: BML Group Limited - rock solid crowd that run places like
CasinoEuro.
Still play there a lot as they also have a huge selection of games, quick withdrawals and a responsive and friendly customer service.
Worst Casino Group :
Dumarca Gaming Limited for me because of the experiences with
Vera&John this year. A fall from grace as I used to play here quite often.
Best Affiliate Program:
BGO Buddies - They have a lot of promotions for their players, I do have a great and helpful contact there that always responds within a few hours if I send an e-mail and they do pay me on time when commission is due.
Worst Affiliate Program :
Lottoland simply because they are AFK 99% of the time, get no answers to my queries and if commission due I always have to e-mail them and ask for payments to be made. I like their concept as they offer online lotto tickets which is convenient for a lot of people who do not have the time or are too lazy to get tickets in the regular shops but their affiliate team is utter rubbish.
And my own created category:
WTF has happened to: What the heck has happened to WMS, once an exciting company with very decent slots. What utter crap they have released in the last 12-18 months is shocking and I do not recognize the good old WMS brand anymore. Also they destroyed their old slots by putting a new skin around them that makes them play sluggish and very laggy. I mean Kronos Unleashed or Mighty Black Knight (Under Barcrest Flag) or Heidi's Bierhaus, 3 examples where they revamped a perfect slot into a horror movie, completely destroyed their originals which were awesome to play. I think this provider has lost the plot a bit, especially when Scientific Games came on board.
Such a shame as I still love the old WMS suite of games like Ruby Slippers, Kronos, Amazon Queen, Luau Loot, Zeus and the newer slots like Raging Rhino and Montezuma.
I really hope they come back with some surprising new releases but I fear this will not happen.
Anyway so far my votes...Cheers!